The scandal began as an operation to free seven American hostages being held by a group with Iranian ties connected to the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was planned that Israel would ship weapons to Iran, and then the U.S. would resupply Israel and receive the Israeli payment. The Iranian recipients promised to do everything in their power to achieve the release of the U.S. hostages. The plan deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages.[2][3] Large modifications to the plan were devised by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985, in which a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua.[4][5]

Iran Contra was basically a gun running operation designed to free our hostages and support the Contras in Nicaragua.

Out of the several conspiracy theories that have been bandied aboutas to why the Regime so vigorously engaged in a web of lies, obfuscations, and cover-ups regarding Benghazi, the Libyan gun-running operation theory seems to be the most credible and convincing.

I see Graham’s mention of Iran Contra as a sign that Republican lawmakers may be looking into this:

In March 2011, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition, who were believed to have links to al Qaeda. Not long after Stevens’ appointment, the U.S. announced a program that sought to buy man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) that had gone missing in Libya. Glen Doherty, one of the former Navy SEALs who was killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack, was working in Libya for the state department to find and destroy the MANPADS, capable of shooting down commercial airliners. Meanwhile at the consulate, with Benghazi still flooded with weapons from the war, Ambassador Stevens and U.S. embassy staff were becoming increasingly concerned for their safety. Security threats were on the rise in the months leading up to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. As noted earlier, Ambassador Stevens’ last meeting was with the Turkish consul general and at least one source has suggested the meeting was to negotiate a weapons transfer; specifically, SA-7 MANPAD missiles from Libyan fighters. Interestingly, a week prior to the attack, a Libyan ship docked in Turkey with a large amount of weapons, including SA-7 MANPADS, bound for Syria.

While the official reason given for Ambassador Stevens being in Benghazi on such an important anniversary is that he was to be present at the opening of a new English-language school, it seems he was there to do his job as a liaison for the Libyan rebels. Considering the fact that the U.S. has armed Libya before, the secret order President Obama authored at the start of the new Libyan war may have included giving weapons to the Libyans once again. However, as the weapons quickly ended up in the hands of al Qaeda, the United States would have been urgently seeking to recover them; not only due to the security concerns but the fact that terrorists were armed as a result. When Syria went to war after Libya, the U.S. was in an opportune position to give the Libyan weapons to the new resistance in Syria. Once again,however, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups were lying in wait to receive the spoils of the newest conflict in the region. Considering Iran-Contra and Fast and Furious, a new scandal wherein the United States once again armed terrorists would certainly be one the current administration would seek to cover-up.

What was really happening, before Gaddafi’s body was even cold, is that we had people locating caches of weapons, separating the working from those that weren’t, and making a big show of destroying the weapons, but only the weapons that were useless. The working weapons were being given to Islamic terrorists. They were being funneled through Libya, crisscrossing Libya on a Muslim Brotherhood managed strategic supply route. In fact, Michael Reagan called it the modern day equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in a recent article he wrote, and he is correct.

The entire arms and weapons running operation was headquartered in Benghazi, The weapons were actually being shipped out of Libya from the port city of Dernah, located about a hundred miles east of Benghazi. That was the ‘choke point’ of the weapons being shipped out. Remember the Lusitania? Think in those terms, ships carrying weapons hid among ‘humanitarian aid.’ By the time of the attacks, an estimated 30-40 million pounds of arms were already transported out of Libya.

What if the terrorists had killed those four Americans in Libya with weapons provided by the United States?